Production of Knowledge in Higher Education Policies: Review of

Scientific Practices in a Public University

Abstract: We present the results of an investigation that considers the analysis of the scientific practices that the researchers display in a Mexican state public university; the Autonomous University of the State of Hidalgo. A total of 18 open interviews were applied to full-time researchers belonging to the National System of Researchers of the National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT). In general terms we try to know and compare the scientific practices of the researchers of the Institute of Basic Sciences and Engineering (ICBI) and the Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities (ICSHU) of UAEH. The results validate the conformation of a categorial apparatus that allows characterizing the scientific practices from three great dimensions of analysis: (1) Modes of knowledge production in the ICBI and the ICSHU. (2) Context and organizational dynamics of the scientific activity, both externally through federal programs such as PROMEP and CONACYT, and internally from the logic of state public universities that define the way researchers work, and finally, Strategies of scientific collaboration, based on processes of communication and interaction with the purpose of achieving a common purpose for research groups.